


Far from home but not alone

by 2trangerMcDanger



Series: Space Solkat [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Sgrub Session, M/M, Quadrant Confusion, Quadrant Vacillation, and i definitely did keep that in mind the entire time i was writing it, but also can be read as a stand alone fic, could possibly be read as a prequel to my other space solkat fic, depictions of poverty, runaways - Freeform, space adventures
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:55:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24154669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/2trangerMcDanger/pseuds/2trangerMcDanger
Summary: Especially seeing him then, curled up in the bottom of the coon you found but couldn't heat, shivering and thin as a rail, the pity filled you like thick, sickeningly sweet tar, held you a gunpoint and forced you to be enveloped and drowned by it. You had no choice but to hold him close to your chest, tuck your head under his neck, and whisper to him softly until he unfurled and wrapped himself around you, desperately clinging and grabbing at your warmth. His hair was stiff and prickly, unwashed and smelled of used, stale sopor, both of you did.
Relationships: Sollux Captor/Karkat Vantas
Series: Space Solkat [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1904998
Comments: 4
Kudos: 44





	Far from home but not alone

**Author's Note:**

> I've been chipping away at this for far too long, i need to post it or my brain will melt away
> 
> Can and maybe should be read as a prequel to my other work Worth Waiting For but doesn't have to

You knew that when you looked yourself in the mirror one evening, slime still stuck to your head, your life was over. In your head, you said the phrase, "this is the last night I'll ever be alive." You were a perigee and a half away from your 9th wriggling day and your iries were starting to fade into the color you'd been hiding from your entire life. That's also when you realized you must be a pretty early bloomer, you'd never heard any of your other friend's starting to get to that point in their growth, fuck, there were still a few who hadn't even gone through their first molt yet! 

  
From the look of things, you had two options. Roll over and die, or fight. And you're no fucking coward.

  
It took ten minutes to get your things together. You'd been prepared for this evening since the day you learned how to walk.  
There were a few stupid plans running around in your stupid head. Dig a hole and just live far, far underground like a mole person, eating worms and dead bodies that were buried or left in the sun. Free cooked meat. Ew. You wish you didn't have to think about that. Especially the image.

  
Maybe sneak on someone else's cargo ship or something. And when you're inevitably caught, just beg pathetically enough and they'll let you stay so long as you work for your meals. That's fine by you, honestly a best-case scenario.   
But what was always on your mind when you were thinking about leaving, was the unfinished business you'd be deserting. 

  
\---

  
Of course, you'd say goodbye to Sollux first. He was your first. Friend that is. He's most definitely your friend. And you felt terrible that this was the first time you'd get to see him, and that it was goodbye forever. 

  
When you told him you're outside his hivestem, he didn't even ask. He'd been badgering you for sweeps to hang out with him, play his grub consoles, and finally give you a "front-row viewing on what a real pro-setup looks like" (his words not yours). But when you didn't even so much as give him a snarl or a rude comment when he finally came out to meet you, he knew something's up. 

  
"I'm leaving, Sollux."  
"What? You just got here." He was smiling, eyebrow slightly quirked and you feel worse.  
"No, I'm _leaving_ leaving."  
"Like...leaving the planet? You're not even 9 yet dude, what the fuck's your rush?" 

  
And you told him. Behind his hivestem, in a grungey, greasy alleyway, you told him about your mutation, and if the wrong people heard about this, you'd be dead in seconds. You figured it was the last time you'd see him, you could give him this little piece of yourself. He reacted with inappropriate calmness, told you he knew, and that he'd known for a while and, that if he was being honest, he'd been thinking of ways to avoid the system and get you off-planet safely the moment he found out. You tried to badger him into how he got such sensitive information, but the answer was very vague and unsatisfying. 

  
Sollux told you about this long elaborate plan on how he was going to get Equius to give him all the metal he had, weld it together, and make you a little walnut, shoot you into space with a computer, and a signal. That he didn't have all the kinks sorted out, like how'd you'd eat or get fresh water, but "it's a start." Yeah, a start into a slow, torturous death of starvation.

  
You know, logically speaking, you'd need to do this alone. Alone, you're safer, faster, more compact, more food to go around, resources last longer. But you know that you go nuts after 3 nights without messaging anyone. There are no DVD players in space or satellite television. You'd be writing stories in your fluids, driven insane by the isolation before you'd even turn 10. You'd want someone, anyone up in that little walnut with you, but there's no way in hell you'd ever ask. 

  
Lucky for you, you've suspected Sollux to be a mind reader since you were much younger, and he'd never really proven that he can't, cause once you started with your awkward goodbyes, and that you're leaving _alone_ , he started getting a little fidgety. Scratching at his neck, tugging the hem of his shirt.

"I don't have much of a future here, Karkat." He didn't look at you when he spoke, "if I stay, it's the helm."  
You swallowed loudly and gripped the straps of your backpack so tight, you lost feeling in them. Your teeth sunk into your lower lip and you rolled your eyes and sighed.  
"Yeah, okay."

  
\---

  
It's been so long, you don't remember the full conversation you had with Sollux about him joining you. You remember him leaving his hivestem, big bag of things, lusus, and a really big thing of this honey stuff. You and Sollux fought for days about taking his lusus but he said he's not leaving him behind like that, so you let it slide. It was nice to climb up on his shoulders and let him walk you places when it got hard to stand and Sollux was too tired to carry anyone anymore. And you admit, he had some fun stories to tell.

  
Eventually, you found someplace big, empty, and highly forested. It took days, lots of not knowing where the fuck you're going or what the fuck you're doing. Obviously, you had to see the stupid sweaty horse freak. You didn't know anyone else with just piles of metal that they weren't using, and it's not like he can't get anymore. Stupid bitch probably has mountains of it that he's hoarding.

About halfway through, Sollux's lusus collapsed from exhaustion and never got back up. At first, you were fine with just getting up after an hour's rest and leaving. Crabdad was important to you, obviously, but he wasn't...he didn't coddle you like you guess Sollux's did. He knew what life you were going to lead and had no control over. You needed to be prepared for that as soon as possible, and you're grateful for that. Even if the way Sollux sat by what was clear as night to you as a corpse tugged deeply at your pumpertwines. He cried and cried about it for days, and you couldn't help but hold him close while he did. 

  
When you suggested to just leave the body there, he punched you so hard in the chest, you lost your breath and coughed for a solid 30 seconds. Needless to say, you spent an entire three days in the same area. Digging, hauling, and burying took two days, but Sollux grieved for an entire 24 hours, sitting under a tree and barely moving. He would talk, but all he wanted to say was stories he told him, happy memories, and the like. You indulged him, sat next to him, and looked at the stars together. At some point, Sollux's hand slipped into yours, just holding it with his head on your shoulder. Neither of you says anything for a long time.

You fell asleep like that, and when you woke up, you had sunburn spots on you where the sun seeped through the leaves just a little bit. You laughed at each other at how ridiculous you looked and Sollux was finally ready to move forward.

  
Once you finally made it to Equius' place, you were in awe. You'd never seen something so big, and right next to it, and the even larger castle stood. He knew you were coming, and his gross-looking butler thing opens the door for you and takes you to him.  
He agrees to give you all the metal he had in his giant recreation block in exchange for one or both of you to spit in his mouth. You're thoroughly disgusted, refuse outright, and you're halfway through ripping him a _new_ hole to get spit into when Sollux twists the blue-bloods hair into his hand tightly, yanks him down and just does it. You shudder in disgust as Equius drops to his knees and shakily gestures to the pile. You take as much as you can carry, and leave as quickly as you can.

"Why'd you do that?" You asked after you were much farther away.  
"We needed it."   
Fair enough. 

  
You also found lots of abandoned hives that were full of useful stuff. Tools, technology, building materials, and even cloth. You even found a whole ass recuperacoon! That'll definitely save some pain later down the line.  
You squatted in them for a few nights, building the smaller mechanical stuff and making shittily sewn blankets just to rest but still get work done before getting back up and going again.

  
\---

You had to find the perfect spot to build. Under drone patrol radars, away from any civilization whatsoever, away from any signal, and also protected by the sun. Nepeta's got the right idea. Cave's are the shit, actually.

  
It took perigees of sleeping in shrubs, eating wild game, and spending entire days sometimes working on this ship. You knew Sollux was good, but you didn't know he was able to jimmy together all the tech in-and-outs from the circuits he brought from his hive. When you were done, it was tiny. Your block at home was bigger, everything was barely operational since neither of you knew anything about constructing an entire ship.

  
While you built, you were preserving food to last at least a sweep. Nepeta helped with that and barely questioned why when you asked, one of the last moments of contact with the outside world before dropping off the map. She had lots of tips on hunting and preserving food, as well as the shelf life on everything. She even gave you good tips on berries and vegetables to eat out in the wild while and you Sollux lived like cavetrolls, hair overgrown, skin getting darker from close calls with the sun, and your eyes a bright, fiery red. 

  
Sollux seemed almost pampered when he came out here, complaining about heat and humidity, whining about sleeping in the dirt, and eventually, when your ship in progress was along enough to start using as shelter, he complains about how hot it is in there, the heat-conducting metal surrounding you. You had many fights when you'd be getting rested.

"If it bothers you so much, go back to the cave!" You'd finally snap, sitting up and smacking him upside the head.  
"Yesterday, I found the biggest fucking spider crawling _on my fucking_ neck, that thing was definitely packing some fucking heat in its stupid little mandibles, do you _want_ me to die?? Die right here right now when we've gotten so far? after all, we've been through?"  
"I'd rather you'd be dead yeah!! All you do is fucking whine and bitch and moan, Jesus fucking fuck!"

Sollux was quiet for a while, and you spoke up again. "I'm sorry dude, I didn't mean it."  
"You can't say shit like that." He sounded a tiny bit choked up.  
"I know. " You slung an arm over his sweaty topless body, your skin stuck together in a gross way, and when you wake up the next evening, he'd curled up in your chest. If you weren't in the blistering, humid heat, you might have stayed like that a little while longer.

  
Modesty went out the window by week 2. At that point, you'd bathed in rivers together, dressed wounds from massive beasts, and Sollux even extracted a slitherbeast fang that had broken off in your ass. You held him in a tight headlock to swear he'd never bring it up again, what a good sport.

You vividly remember one night, both of you were perfectly nude on a riverbank and it didn't feel even the slightest bit sexual or weird. Even if the site of his bare shoulders facing you did give you little ruffles in your guts. Sollux was scrubbing one of the two pairs of clothes he owned over and over with his bare hands in the muddy water, just to make it smell like anything other than sweat. Your eyes were at the stars, staring up and watching murky gray clouds roll by with the wind. "Are we doing the right thing?" You muttered, mostly to yourself.  
"What's that suppose to mean?" Sollux had paused in his work, you still remember the look he gave you. That little half eyebrow quirk, one of his eyes a little squinted and that twist of a frown.  
"I mean like..." You sat up, pulling your hands up and ready to fidget with them. "Are we doing this right? Do you think there's an easier way? We're obviously failing miserably at this shit, couldn't we have...I dunno. Found a different way off-planet?" 

Sollux made a 'tch' noise, like a scoff and a huff melded together. "Man, I don't know. There's a lot of ways we could be going. And there's a good chance any of them could've ended successfully. Or not. Who cares, we're doing this and we're already nook fucking deep, so you better not have any second guesses or I swear to fucking god."

"What do you mean _who cares?_ I care! You care!"  
"You know what I--"  
"The point of asking wasn't like...could we go about it a different way, I just meant...Maybe I'm scared of failing. Cause failure isn't just the humiliation of doing something bad, failure is..." You trailed off, the thought making you queasy.

Sollux fully stopped and turned to look at you. "I get it. The whole...being scared thing. You don't have to explain anything to me. I'm scared too." Even with him saying that his expression didn't seem to change much. He looked the same, that same composed stare, that knowing stare. If you didn't know or trust him, you would've called bullshit on this whole empathy thing he'd done. But, you do know him, and you know he doesn't like to let this part of him crack open and show, and that if he could get rid of all emotion and feelings within him, he would.

You gave a little huff and a smile, leaning your elbow on your knee to rest your face against a hand. "That doesn't make me feel even the slightest bit better." You said, truthfully. He shrugged and smiled back, turning back to the clothes to scrub more while you watched. 

  
Neither of you really knew what the fuck you were doing, and it wasn't like you could just look up a tutorial on the internet. Sollux said he did a little bit of research, but clearly either didn't remember it, or it wasn't really applicable to the situation. Stupid moron probably looked up how to build one when you have all the fucking parts as you did.  
Eventually, after many long perigees and close calls with wandering trolls, you got something that can at least fly a little bit. With a few test runs in a kind of deep lake you two found to make sure it was airtight, it's finally ready to go. You gather your food, supplies, tools you made, and other supplies you'd gathered and you sealed all the openings while Sollux picked you up, and shot you into space.

  
You made it, survived the trip, but you were sure as hell not living. Because you were basically making shelter in this thing as soon as it had a casing around it, finding a way to make it cool was the top priority. Can't build if you're suffering from heatstroke. But what never occurred to you, even with basic knowledge of how space is, you never put in a heater. The heat was so intense and unbearable at all times, the thought of making it getting even the smallest bit hotter made you nauseous.  
As such, it was always incredibly cold in the cabins.

  
You were both paranoid about rations, unsure when or if you'd ever be able to go anywhere at all for food, so instead 3 full rations every day, you each had one ration every two days. 

  
There was a point in the building process when your undefined pitch tension finally got mentioned. You two had a couple of strifes in the grass when you were already tired as fuck from work all day and smelled terrible from so much sweat. Even when the bickering got old, you still smacked and bit and pinched each other, sniped and griped and bitched at each other.

After the irritation dried up, got old, you stopped noticing how annoying he is, his acidic words lost their sting and you started seeing him for the big squishy softy he really is on the inside.

Especially seeing him then, curled up in the bottom of the coon you found but couldn't heat, shivering and thin as a rail, the pity filled you like thick, sickeningly sweet tar, held you a gunpoint and forced you to be enveloped and drowned by it. You had no choice but to hold him close to your chest, tuck your head under his neck, and whisper to him softly until he unfurled and wrapped himself around you, desperately clinging and grabbing at your warmth. His hair was stiff and prickly, unwashed and smelled of used, stale sopor, both of you did.

  
Neither of you could sleep, but at least you felt a little better.

  
Without sun or moons to track days and nights, you had no idea how long you lived like that. You slept when you were tired, woke up when you couldn't sleep anymore. At one point, you tried marking each time you woke up with your sickle on the wall like a slave in the Empress's dungeon, but that soon became old. You forgot several times when you had woke up, or how many times you'd fallen asleep and for how long. Everything just blurred together. Sollux tried his best to work on the new technology so you could find somewhere better, but you could only do so much with what you had. Only so many things to put together, take apart, and remix over and over again.

  
After what felt like perigees, you'd thought you'd hit the worst stroke of luck in the world. A bigger, much fancier ship (but still honestly not that impressive in general, the thing only had one tiny little window) was pulling in close to you. Sollux read out the messaging in morse code from the openings, made by the ship's front-most lights.

"What are they saying??" You were still learning code, not an expert yet, but Sollux was a much faster learner than you were.  
He paused for a long time when while putting all the pieces in his big brain. "They wanna know if there's anyone alive on here, and to let them on if there is." He set his eyes onto what he calls "high beams" and signaled back.

  
..-. ..- -.-. -.- --- ..-. ..-.  
F U C K O F F

You could read that, at least.

  
They didn't take to it very well, you could presume, turning the light on extensively. You yelled at Sollux, smacked him around a few times, asking, "what the fuck were you thinking! They could've been trying to help! Or had extra supplies! "Or maybe they're fucking pirates, you unbelievable fucking idiot, and they're here to kill us in the slowest and painful way imaginable!"  
"They clearly were not! They were asking if the ship's occupied! Now they know it fucking is and that it's full of dickwads!"

  
While you fought, the possible space pirates, raiders, whatever the fuck had already shot you with a magnet harpoon, keeping you from moving as they pulled their suited bodies through towards your ship. Yeah, probably pirates. There were two of them, big vague bodies, with every inch covered in special suits, huge arms too. You and Sollux hid away and waited for them to break in. As soon as they started throwing shit around, you jumped right behind one, cracked his neck, and Sollux did the same to the other.

It was terrifying. Once it was over, you fell to your knees and just sat for a while, shaking. 

  
You knew you'd have to eventually. Take life. You'd be stupid to think you could just coast along your own traitorous body without having to defend yourself the old fashioned way. The thing you'd been fighting so hard just to have a little scrap of, even at the cost of suffering and starvation, even at the cost of watching your own friend do it. Sollux comforted you, not looking nearly as rattled, but you could tell he didn't enjoy doing it. Good, you chose right. 

  
He holds you tight, and you hold on tighter, squeezing his sweaty, thick shirt. After a good fistful of moments, he finally let's go when you feel better, and you both seem to think the same thing. 

  
Stealers now become the stealing. 

  
The spacesuits fit poorly over your still growing bodies, but you'd rather them be too big than too small. Sollux helps carry you both over to their ship even though you really didn't want him to, break into it, and you suppose it's yours now, isn't it? As soon as it's welded up again (he accidentally did all four sides, trapping you in here until he fixed it), you realized the gravity of your situation. 

  
"This ship is ours now," you say the words out loud, and they finally hit you. Sollux laughs loudly, and it echoes throughout all the chambers. You both immediately run to the cockpit, which had another troll in it. Before you could even process the other person, and before their poor self could even process you, Sollux absolutely obliterates him with his eye lasers, making a big melty pile of metal and plastic where the controls were and also a bunch of gross pieces of a corpse that almost made you throw up when you registered it.

"Why did you do that!!" You punched him hard in the shoulder and he whined.  
"I panicked!" He sounds genuinely sorry, but it doesn't fix this massive inconvenience you two have on your hands. Now you'll have to fix that too, won't you? Not to mention you didn't know how to fly this fucking thing anyway. 

You immediately get to raiding and also checking for extra passengers but you think you got all of them. There's so much food, and it's not hard, dry, flavorless meat jerkies and flash-frozen berries, and even better, an entire two-liter of pineapple Faygo in the freezing apparatus. You gave a loud hoot of happiness and pulled it out quickly to show Sollux, but he's all the way in the engine room, already scavenging for building manuals, tools, and spare parts. His head's shoved in this metal box, still pulling out things the previous crew probably considered junk but if this has taught the two of you anything, there's no such thing.

When he breathes for air, there are oil smudges all over his face and it makes something in your chest pulsate. And it pulsates again when he looks up at you and his whole face lights up like the morning sky. 

  
"Fuck yeah dude, where'd you find that?"   
"Next to the other foodstuffs, dude! Actual food!" 

  
The smile doesn't leave his face as he gets up to goes to the nutrition block, scanning all the different flavors of rations and tube foods. Not ideal, but it's the finest of steak compared to what you've been eating. 

  
Sollux quickly goes to the sink to wash his face, something you've seen him do many times since you didn't have a proper shower, but as soon as he turns on the cold water, you grab his shoulder and look at him intently. 

  
Almost telepathically, he seems to understand what you mean. That's something that you didn't know would happen when you lived with someone for as long as you did. You know him more than you ever thought you could know someone.

Sollux shut off the sink and the two of you sprinted down the corridors of the ship, pull clothes off you as you run like hooligans and slamming into the shitty, grimy communal showers with no walls or curtains but you don't care. It's the best shower you've had in ages. You used hot water, real soap, a towel to dry off, you can't remember the last time you've experienced such bliss. 

  
You hadn't raided the respiteblocks yet, but when you start going to, nothing but towels draped around your fresh bodies, you stop a second. Sollux went on without you, opened up the first one, and looked through all the clothes.

  
There were only two blocks here, but there were three crewmates you killed. Two of them must have been sharing rooms. The thought of ending two lives was already hard for you to swallow, even with the distraction of finally having a place to actually live, but now you're contending with the fact that you killed two people who possibly were in a quadrant together. Or at least were close enough to share a place to sleep. A place to talk, and rest. You think about how they could have fought together, given each other petty cold shoulders until someone finally called out how immature they were being. You think about how they might have felt homesick, missed their lusus like you're missing yours, and Sollux is missing his. They were people, with feelings, and dreams, and people they cared about and cherished and you ended it all. 

  
You stayed out there for a long time, just in the corridor, close to tears again, and Sollux comes out. "KK, these spoils are truly--Woah, dude what's wrong?" As if it's the most casual thing in the world, he wraps his arm around you and pulls you close. Your throat is so tight you can't even say anything, silently putting your forehead against his shoulder. Sollux rubs your bareback while you cry, and said you'll give them a proper send-off after you get dressed. 

  
The two of you collected your suspiciously strewn about clothes, found the washing apparatuses, and chuck all your clothes in there. While they're washing, the two of you made up some really stupid raps and badly written songs on the spot, and Sollux tapped an equally shitty beat on the wall with his hands, it wasn't an even rhythm, but it made you feel better. It took your mind off things. 

  
The first thing both of you did when you take your clothes out of the low power moisture incinerator was holding them up to your face and smell deep. There wasn't even any detergent, but it smelled so nice to just have clean clothes that weren't almost stiff with grime and sweat. 

  
You and Sollux went though every block and found personal items. Anything that looked handmade, even if you had use for it, anything with handwriting on it, no matter how insignificant, even a sticky note next to the thermostat that said: "GODDAMMIT MELZON STOP MAKING IT SO DAMN HOT IN HERE!!!" You take all of it, and the third crewmate you killed, the gross pieces at least. After dawning your too-big spacesuits again, you climbed over to the crappy ship you made, recovered the rest of your items, the rest of your food, and things. It's impossible to tell who the couple was, so you sat their mangled bodies upright, all close together.

  
It was weird, moving the dead around, but Sollux didn't seem bothered by it much at all. While you worked, he told you why. 

  
"AA used to take me on these scavenging trips, and you can't really scavenge a place that doesn't have a history. Sometimes the history is dead people, obviously. Dead people are everywhere, people die all the time. It's part of life. Their bodies are big and get in the way, you gotta move 'em." The way he spoke about it so casually made you think that every troll must have had experience with this sort of thing. You rarely ever left your hive. Only just after sunset, or just before daybreak when Crabdad was tired or injured so the two of you could eat. And even then, that was only once a month at most.

  
After you'd made what was essentially their casket, set up all of their personal things in the neatest way the two of you possibly could, Sollux pulled out the magnetic keeping your old ship attached, and drew it back while you watched your little walnut drift away in the endless, terrifying abyss that is space.

  
You cried one last time. Silent and dignified, unlike the last two. Sollux held your hand and gave you a squeeze. Neither of you moved until the ship is no longer in sight. 

  
You felt better. You felt good.

  
"Wouldn't it suck if they all actually hated each other? And they stole this ship from someone else and we set them all up all happy and shit?" Sollux's words made you laugh some, and that helped too.  
"Better safe than sorry," you said to him with a shrug, even though you still felt so sorry. 

\---

There was work to be done and it had to be done eventually. Sollux was the first to leave, but you stuck around for at least a few more moments before deciding to get something to eat.

You ate an entire tube of pepperoni flavored tube food and it was the finest cuisine you'd had in forever. You hadn't looked for Sollux yet, and the thought hadn't really crossed your mind, you were still thinking about what you'd done. And you also couldn't stop thinking about that Faygo in the freezer.

You agonized for what felt like ages, should you drink it, should you not. Of fucking course, you're going to, and you did. You had two sips and were already stumbling down the halls to try and find Sollux. He was in the engine room again, with all the lights turned off.

"Hmmm, spooky." You said, flicking the light with one hand and the bottle clutched by the small neck in your other. You saw his little eyes shake, like you startled him. "Fucking hell, what do you want." You remember him sounding kind of annoyed, but not too genuinely.

You make a little bit of a thinking face, and shrug. "Just thought you could use a break or something."  
"It's been like...5 minutes dude, what do you mean break, I just started working."  
"Humor me."

He rolls his eyes and holds his hand out for the Faygo and you crack into a big big smile and hand it over to him with a satisfying slap.

\---

Two hours later and you're both on your backs, faced up at the ceiling and you can barely feel any of your limbs.

"I just don't think I _like_ quadrants, dude. Like...the concept of having them all..." You make this slice and dice gesture with your hands. "S-sectioned? is that a word?"  
"It's a word now. Coined it. Sollux Captor year....uh...fuck I don't know. Right now and by me and forever."  
"You can't claim that shit, I made it up!"  
"Snooze you lose. I'm also not at all following whatever the hell you're talking about. About quadrants? What the fuck else would you have? Just one single one? How would you choose?"  
"That's the thing! I don't wanna choose! Why can't I just...be with whoever I want? However I want, and we do whatever we want. Why does--who needs all these different boxes with people that fulfill different purposes? I just wanna be with someone." Your mouth forms around that last word, and you can't help but look over at him when it does.

He still so weird shaped, even after gaining some muscle while working on the ship with you and then losing some of it while you two fasted. His chest area seemed a little weird shaped, but every time you brought it up, he was really defensive. Some barkbeasts just need to be left to lie, you guess.

Sollux seems to be intentionally not looking at you, excessively keeping his gaze from yours while your heads turned awkwardly to stare at him like a weirdo. "Yeah, I guess we all do, don't we. People wanna experience everything before they...ya know."  
"Captor, oh my fucking god, do you have to be so melodramatic, even now?" That kinda ruins your wistful mood, and you roll back over on your back. "All you ever do is jerk your grimey bulge over death and how you seem so excited for it."  
"That's not true. I really like being alive. Being alive feels really good. Feeling things...feels really good."  
"I can't believe I made you drunk and you're a complete and utter sissy sap." You couldn't help but laughs some, the kind of laugh that warms you while you sit up.  
"What! I'm being honest! What the fuck do you want from me."

You thought about that question for a good few seconds, the smart side of your brain and the dumb side of your brain fighting to the death. The dumb sign has a really big advantage though. It's still dumb though.

"I dunno. A gallon of bleach and a fancy cup?"  
Sollux smacked you half-assedly. "Hey, don't. No jokes like that. We didn't make it this far just to open our asses up real wide for Mistress Suicide to plunge her bulge into."  
"Gross."  
"It's what she does." He said casually, taking a sip.  
"It's my fucking mouth, I can joke about whatever I want."  
"Not if you don't want me beating the shit out of you, you won't."  
"I wish you fucking would. Gimme something nice to think about."  
"Okay, that's gross." He said that but he's laughing some, and finally looked over at you, but only for a few seconds before sighing. "Maybe it is weird that we square everything off into quadrants. But if you don't have them...where do they go."

  
"What do you mean where?"  
"Like... I dunno. Never mind, it's stupid, I'm going to sleep." He did sit up and stretch his arms up high as a purrbeast does and you, in your hazy stupor, pat his tummy, he smacked you upside the head with barely a beat skipped and you snatched up his hand, just holding it by the wrist, forgetting what you were doing. He tugged at it, but you held tight.  
You both sit there, not sure where to go or what to do, and before either of you can say something and make it even more awkward, you just let go. Sollux would never be so merciful. Sollux would've pulled you forward and kissed you like he meant it, kissed you like he's been waiting forever and it feels so right and so good, like he'd never get the opportunity to do it again and--

"Are you good?"  
You shook your head, all those thoughts clanging together like marbles. For once, you thought before you spoke. "Yeah. I'm fine. I think I'll sleep too."

Without any talking or questioning, you both made your way to the bigger block, got undressed, and squeezed into the 'coon together. It was so thick and warm, you sighed loudly as soon as you were up to your neck. Usually, you were both tight in here like two fish in a can, but now there was enough room for him to be all the way on the other side, but he wasn't. He tucked himself under your chin and wrapped his arms around your middle like he always did. And you pull your arms up around his neck like you always did. And you get this tugging feeling, this tugging, warming sensation in your chest. Like you always did.

\---

When you wake up, it didn't surprise you that Sollux wasn't in your arms. He usually woke up before you. It was, however, surprising that he wasn't in your view the moment you leaned over the edge of the 'coon. Your old ship was so small, he was basically always in your sights, but it was so jarring to be alone.

You took a moment to relish in it, the hum of the machines that were regulating the air, and the lights. You took a moment to look at your own hands, your own skin, your own body for the first time in your own mindset, no one to comment on how weird you're behaving. It was nice at first, nostalgic. You spent your whole life up to this point alone, with no one around you to say anything, or really anyone to share space with. Upon thinking that, you're haunted by your previous life, and quickly get up to find Sollux.

There was a towel located right next to the 'coon, which is normal for a regular hive, but a luxury you've gone without for a long while. Another thing you take a moment to relish in as you clean your self before getting dressed in the clothes you wore the night before.

You peeked in the nutritionblock, no Sollux. The other respiteblock, nope. Recreational center, no. Finally, he was where you probably should have looked first. The engine room, surrounded by manuals and broken pieces. He didn't notice you peek in and you decide to leave him be, for now.

You noticed that Sollux prefers solitude and silence. Many times, he would've made you shut up your normal outward ramblings, or didn't allow you near him for several stretches of hours. This wouldn't be odd if it weren't for the aforementioned "always in the same space together pretty much constantly" aspect. You couldn't imagine silence for that long, silence scares you. Silence reminds you of each ticking-tock that was your mortal clock, right outside your hive that was waiting for you to come out, slip up, get caught. Outward monologuing was the only thing keeping you going, and it's the only thing keeping you going now.

Back in the nutritionblock, while you mixed together cold water and powered meat rations, you mumbled your thoughts about last night, recalling the taste of the artificial pineapple, something you'd never tasted before. And you thought "what if you weren't such a coward, huh? what if you grew a pair, and gave it a shot and saw what happened?? Not everything has to end in failure, ya know, sometimes things can go good! Sometimes you can stop feeling so fucking sorry for yourself and make something good. Good can happen, that should be a saying, a motto, or something. Or maybe something like...Take the happiness by the eyes and--no that's gross, what the hell, Karkat. Don't quit your night job of being a fugitive runaway, yeah?"

"Oh good, you're making food. Make extra." Sollux had snuck up behind you, not saying anything but scaring you bad enough to make you slam your hands on the counter and hurt your hands. He didn't react though, just leaned in the space next to you expectantly. "Fuck off..." You muttered, scooping extra powder into the bowl and adding more water too.

"The good news is, I think we have enough parts to fix the control panel and hopefully get this shit actually moving again. The bad news is, there's nothing about a signal yet, still." He looked anxious about the bad news, one of his eyes twitched subtly.

"How is no signal a bad thing? No signal means no footprint, genius." You nudged the bowl of food over to him, giving him first picks. He didn't complain, snatching them up and eating with the stirring apparatus.  
"Yeah, but it also means our friends will still have no fucking idea where we are or if we're alive. KN gets worried for me if I don't update my status online every once and awhile." He went on to imitate Kanaya, affectionately. _"Sollux, you haven't reposted a single cursed image all week, are you feeling okay? Do you wanna come_ _over?_ Imagine how scared she is for us right now." He had a good point. You missed her so much.

You missed everyone. Even Tavros and the way he'd spam the group chats with stupid memes of games only he played. And you even miss Eridan when he would send paragraphs in the same chat about how sad and lonely he is and how no one would respond until Gamzee would post some stupid religious propaganda and break the ice.

You took a deep sigh. "Fuck dude. You're right. But I'm right-er. The longer we stay low, the better."  
He shrugged, mouth full, uninterested. 

"How long are repairs gonna take." You asked, real simply, continuing to scrounge around for anything else when you spotted some instant coffee flakes. Score.

"Fuck if I know. The manuals are at least 50 sweeps old, this thing's gotta be fucking ancient."  
"You _can_ fix it though, can't you?"  
"I can do anything. I'm basically a god."  
"Oh shut up."

After breakfast, Sollux insisted that you work on the controls with him. During which, you discovered just how long you were up in that walnut for, it was five and a half perigees. It felt much much longer, but thank fuck it eventually ended.

Why he'd asked you to help build is beyond you, even now. It probably took twice as long, half of which was arguing over instructions, technicalities, and piece identification, but you eventually got it done. Button pieces were missing and you had to substitute out for plastic bottle lids and clothing buttons and other things just to make sure they were pressable, but when you finally got to flip the switch and hear the engine boot up, you almost cried. Sollux ran a few maintenance checks before actually starting to _move_ the ship, but when he did, that's when you shouted in excitement. With a rush of adrenaline, you snatched him up in your arms in a big, tight hug. Sollux hardly resisted, allowing you a few seconds before shoving at your shoulders to get you to move, but you don't. 

If you had kissed him last night when you weren't thinking clearly, you would've regretted it. It would've had to have been a "thing." You would've had to talk about it with him, and reassure him, or wait the whole rest of the night for the somber rejection, but right now, him in your arms, it felt right. This felt right.

You eventually pulled away from him, not completely, but enough to look at his face. "I could kiss you right now." In romcoms, you loved with characters would say that, because it was so awkward and weird, and not actually something someone would say to a 'friend' no matter how closer. You weren't really asking permission, but in the time it takes for you to actually work it up, he smiled some and quickly said, "okay."

Kissing him gave you a sensation you'd never felt before, a chilly kind of lightheadedness. Your hand went up to hold his face, feeling the planes and angles on your palm and thumb in a way you didn't usually get to. You felt his lips pull tighter into a kind of smile and you part far enough for little puffs of air to mingle between you. You were dizzy, and your feet felt numb, shivers running down you as you thought of pulling him in for another.

"You kiss bad," he mumbled, sweet as nectar and dripping with irony.

You shove him back, hard and with a groaning scoff, your face very quickly heating up. "I fucking _hat_ _e_ you."


End file.
